On looking out of the window.

By © Francis C. Franklin /Attribution: © Francis C. Franklin / CC-BY-SA-3.0

We were taking a break from work at the Glebe garden, indoors because the weather was unseasonably cold. My friend looked out to see two blue tits on the bird feeder. Suddenly there was a flurry of activity between the feeder and the nearby elder, now in full leaf and bloom. There was a family of blue tits! Were they from the nesting box in our garden, or maybe from Peter’s box on the balcony across the river?

No chance of any sort of a photo from that distance, but here is a glorious image from Francis C. Franklin, via Wikipedia. Let’s hope the fledglings soon learn about the predatory cat that has begun to frequent the garden. Maybe the cold morning kept it indoors, or the noise of power tools and hammers from next door.

Thanks to my sharp-eyed friend for a special moment!

Des Res for Wrens?

We were given a wren house for Christmas, I placed it in our riverside hedge at the Glebe garden where I work with disabled gardeners in non-pandemic times. Needless to say, the wrens nested under the opposite hedge, in the heap of scrap timber I was going to tidy away – I’m glad they were spotted in time!

The parent wrens were quite happy to fly very close to my workmate when he was sawing away, almost on their flight path.

On the other hand, we had at home a similar box for bluetits, hung on our house wall and surrounded by pyracantha, a thorny evergreen. Two years running, and again after a year’s break, the blackbirds built on top of it. After that we did have blue tits (like chickadees) two years running. I think they prefer old wood to the smell of new.

The wrens’ house is hidden in the hedge opposite.

A determined struggle.

Image

I could not resist sharing this little story. I am more inclined to believe this happened in a cast iron Royal Mail box, like the one below, rather than a private householder’s gatebox, as shown above. WT.

Rowfant [a small village in Sussex] was once the scene of one of the most determined struggles in history. The contestants were a series of Titmice and the G.P.O., and the account of the war may be read in the Natural History Museum at South Kensington:—

“In 1888, a pair of the Great Titmouse (Parus major) began to build their nest in the post-box which stood in the road at Rowfant, and into which letters, &c., were posted and taken out by the door daily. One of the birds was killed by a boy, and the nest was not finished. In 1889, a pair completed the nest, laid seven eggs, and began to sit; but one day, when an unusual number of post-cards were dropped into, and nearly filled, the box, the birds deserted the nest, which was afterwards removed with the eggs. In 1890, a pair built a new nest and laid seven eggs, and reared a brood of five young, although the letters posted were often found lying on the back of the sitting bird, which never left the nest when the door of the box was opened to take out the letters. The birds went in and out by the slit.

From Highways and Byways in Sussex by E. V. Lucas.

Not this box, but probably one very like it.